Brazil’s finance chief attacks US over QE3

Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister, has warned that the US Federal Reserve’s “protectionist” move to roll out more quantitative easing will reignite the currency wars with potentially drastic consequences for the rest of the world.

“It has to be understood that there are consequences,” Mr Mantega told the Financial Times in an interview on Thursday. The Fed’s QE3 programme would “only have a marginal benefit [in the US] as there is already no lack of liquidity . . . and that liquidity is not going into production.”

He said it was instead depressing the dollar and aimed at boosting US exports.